I impulse-bought this during our last trip to the Attic two years ago; I am such a sucker for Prairie Schooler designs that I tend to forget how much I hate working on linen. We spent some time between shopping sprees at the Attic in a resort hotel out there, sitting around our little suite and stitching. I started on the deer square then, and, as I was reminded how much this is not my medium, I made my usual attempt at deflecting attention away from how I was never, ever, ever going to finish my new project. My tactic? Giving the animals in the piece goofy names and then making fun of myself. In this case, I named the deer Burl.

Burl and I had some good laughs together, and I actually finished his little square, and then? I put the project away, theoretically never to see it again.

But then the new Prairie Schooler designs came out earlier this month, and Pookie called my bluff. As I whimpered about how I wanted to be working on the fancy-schmancy new designs, she was all, “I know exactly where Burl is in the basement. Why don’t you finish him?”

FINE! I’ll work on him!

The next step was the bunnies, a square that went up surprisingly quickly.

How encouraging! I was even able to get over the fact that the shadow under the bunnies makes the one on the left look like he peed. I had suddenly gone from being terribly neglectful to motoring along, and the end was in sight!

Next up, in my “head down, power through” attempt at finishing a piece on linen? The sledding kid.

I love the curl of his little scarf, and how darlingly retro the whole look is. This aesthetic is a very welcome addition to the Prairie Schooler winter vernacular.

Finally, with trembling hands, I moved on to the final square, and the reason I fell in love with this design in the first place:

Of all the many holiday cross stitch designs I’ve seen in my life, which are many, I have never seen one for Groundhog Day. Who could resist? I tried naming the groundhog Bernard, just in case I didn’t get around to finishing the header and border stitching, but it didn’t take. At this point, if I didn’t finish, I was stupid.

There was a minor meltdown along the way when I realized I’d miscounted the space between the top squares and the bottom squares, and I got kind of cranky doing that big header because it wasn’t all cute and tiny like the winter scenes were, and I fretted no small amount about doing double running stitch for the first time in my life instead of backstitching the borders, but you know what? I finished it! WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Thanks Caitlin! And don’t worry about the double running stitch — I’ve been stitching for probably 20 years and have only now broken myself of backstitch. It’s definitely not something to rush into willy-nilly!